Featured Post

20 December 2007

As some of you know, I am a board member of an awesome feminist media organization, Women In Media & News. Well it's that time of the year to ask you to reach into your wallet, perhaps looking between the cushions of your couch, and that spare change in your bag. And who better to ask you to give a little love to WIMN than the amazing Susan Faludi?

“Women in Media & News offers a desperately needed and all-too-rare public service: spotlighting media’s misrepresentations of women from all angles–from distortions to falsehoods to utter erasure–and countering them with careful reporting, no-nonsense statistics, and intelligent analysis. And WIMN’s dispatches are fun to read, to boot. What’s more, WIMN actively changes women’s status in the media: both by bringing a vast repository of informed female sources to the media and by teaching media consumers a crucial skill–how to dissect and debunk those supposedly ‘objective’ media messages about women that they are being bombarded with 24 hours a day, and how to improve those messages. Please join me in giving as generously as you can to support WIMN’s vital work, professionalism, and commitment. The organization can’t survive without you.”

As one of our loyal readers, you know the vital work Susan’s talking about. In 2007 alone, we:

Brought feminist media criticism to the mainstream, with multiple appearances on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and PBS. For example, on “Hannity & Colmes” in the aftermath of the horrific Virginia Tech massacre, WIMN was the only voice in broadcast media to expose how violence against women has been at the root of most of the worst school shootings over the past two decades.

Placed women as featured experts in major news outlets such as Fox, ABC News, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, and Pacifica Radio and in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Bitch, Ms., In These Times, the American Prospect, and many others.

Conducted media trainings for more than 20 women’s groups such as the NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault, the New Orleans Women’s Health and Justice Initiative, and Vibe Theater Experience, and led media literacy programs for more than 1,000 young people at colleges across the country.

If that doesn’t convince you to open up your checkbook, this reality check should: WIMN has achieved these successes, and many more, with just one full-time staff person (who works without a salary or health insurance), no office, and only minimal foundation support.

As an added bonus, for every donation of $35 or more, you’ll get a fabulous gift, courtesy of our friends at the Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild (see their site for pictures and descriptions of these items):